welcome! jeremy freese is a professor in sociology at northwestern university. he finds blogging to be a good diversion from insomnia and a far better use of time than television.

Friday, August 25, 2006

(manson, ia) is this heaven? no, heaven all has the same owner.

(me, in the same cornfield where the ghosts emerged from in Field of Dreams)

Three prominent items on any list of good things about having a blog would be:

1. I have met people I wouldn't otherwise have met. (in the Madison airport, I ran into Tom Bozzo, Susanne, and their always-astonishingly-adorable children.)2. It's contributed to me having more contact with people I wouldn't otherwise have any/as much contact with (such as when someone I've lost touch with runs across my blog and e-mails me, which has happened at least a couple dozen times by this point).3. It's led me to do things I wouldn't otherwise have taken the time to do.

As for #3, when I was driving from Madison to Manson yesterday, I saw myself approaching the turn for Dyersville, where Field of Dreams was filmed. I've always felt like this was something that it was my state-riotic duty as an Iowan to visit. Plus, it was a gorgeous day outside. Truthfully, though, the decisive thing was me thinking: "I can take some pictures for my blog."

I don't know if you know much about baseball diamonds, but they are like a giant square divided into four quadrants. The lower right quandrant has the infield, where most of the action takes place. The other three quadrants are the outfield, which is just green space. The reason this is relevant is that the field of Field of Dreams was actually built across two families' properties, who have developed "uneasy" relationship with one another. As a result, the Field of Dreams is technically two separate sites, "The Original Field of Dreams Movie Site", which encompasses the infield and right field (and the house by the field), and "Left and Center Field of Dreams," which encompasses left and center field.

Fortunately, both parties realize their interests are better serve by not having any "uneasiness" alter the actual field, which is preserved. (Or, at least preserved except for people who trace their initial with their heel by home plate, but such people smooth the gravel over again before leaving.)

7 comments:

Anonymous
said...

The conflict between the two families exists because of a difference of opinion on how the site(s) should be run. When shooting was over, the infield/house side kept the baseball field, while the LaCFoD folks plowed their part under.

Of course, people came to the site. LaCFoD saw dollar signs and decided to change their land back into a baseball field and sell food and souvenirs. While infield/house does have a small souvenir stand (away from the field), making a living off the site is not the intent - it's just an interesting piece of pop culture for people to take a look at. The building sitting in left field takes away from the quaintness.

You missed seeing the movie projected on a big screen a couple of weeks ago. Netflix is showing movies at their locations, and brought Kevin Costner and his band to open for the show. In spite of it being on LaCFoD property, I did go.